


Border Lines  (the spaces where we go blurry)

by BrushStrokeSun



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Depression, M/M, Sadness in general, Suicide, Synesthesia, Tattoos, hella run on sentences that i'm calling "stylized", tw self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 08:20:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7610680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrushStrokeSun/pseuds/BrushStrokeSun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>dan has synesthesia </p>
<p>TW: self-harm, suicidal thoughts, sad stuff in general, also language</p>
            </blockquote>





	Border Lines  (the spaces where we go blurry)

_*** Spaces*** _

 

Cold florescent light cut into the hotel room when the door opened, spilling over the dusty carpet and the

two twin-sized beds.

 

_Fucking finally, I thought we were going to be driving forever!_

The suitcase hit the right-side bed with a dull thump, the mattress breathing out dust.

 

_Only you would forget to pack underwear for a weeklong road trip._

_I didn’t forget! I just… didn’t pack enough._

 

The springs whined as Dan sat on the edge of the left bed, Converse flat on the carpet and hands flat on the quilt.

 

            _You’re my best friend. Nothing’s going to change that._

_I know._

            _So stop worrying about it_. _I can hear you thinking from over here._

The room was gagged with dry heat; there was a tell tale click-click of old metal creaking its way to suffocating the dark room. He sat in the dark, listening to all the nothing until the white noise became pieces in the dull blur; breath scraping lungs and the irritated buzz of florescent lights and heating systems.

 

            _I look like I got punched in the throat, I mean Jesus Phil—_

_If we don’t leave now we’ll be late._

_We have like, ten minutes—_

_Dan._

_Okay! Okay._

 

If he closed his eyes he didn’t have to turn the lights on. All his memories were dark anyways, auditory and touch. Everything was so hot too hot and clothes were a nuisance and somewhere under his nails was raspberry tinted porcelain skin and the sensation that Dan was titanium, so unbreakable. So bright and light swimming in sky blue moans and burnt orange gasps.

 

            _You’re such a drama queen._

_Fuck off._

_It’s adorable_

_It’s what?_

_It’s cute. That you care, I mean._

_Are you saying that my melodramatic tendencies are a turn-on?_

_Maybe._

Bed sheets tangle and half breathless laughs are the exact shimmer white of Easter lily petals and, and, and.

 

Dan opened his eyes. The red alarm clock burns past 2AM, nearly 3. His phone was long dead and he wouldn’t have answered anyways, he argued with himself, wouldn’t have answered anyways cause what’s the point there was nothing left to say and no one would call anyways. With his eyes open he could barely see the shapes in the room, the lumps of bedding and dressers and opaque lampshades. The burning red and the amber filtering through he blinds were the only light, but Dan didn’t need anymore once his eyes had adjusted.

 

He opened his suitcase like it was silk, as if the zipper would wake the empty bed next to him. Dan carefully took the shoebox from the nearly empty suitcase, placing it next to him and moved to sit cross-legged further up on the bed, his back against the generic wallpaper with pocks and crinkles and soaked with cigarettes smoked at ungodly hours and secret encounters. He pulled an old green hoodie from the suitcase, yanking his t-shirt over his head, kicking his shoes into the door and wriggling out of his dark skinny jeans so that it was just Dan: in his boxers and a hoodie that wasn’t technically his; back against the wall and the shoebox in his lap. He closed his eyes again; it was easier to see when his eyes were closed.

 

His favorite were the broken gasps-burnt orange with crisped edges not as bright as outraged and sarcastic gasps for theatrical effect, but still so Phil, so brilliant and full and warm and all encompassing-the burnt orange was his favorite.

 

            _Dan…_

_You talk too much._

_Dan, Dan, Dan._

_I’m here, I’m right here._

_I know, I…_

_I’m here._

_I know. I just like saying your name._

_And I like when you say it, it’s—_

_What color am I Dan?_

_Amber. Orange-y goldish amber, you’ve always been…_

_Amber._

_Yea._

_That’s a good color?_

_It’s my favorite._

 

Memories were off color, Dan never remembered it right, never remembered… he tugged at his hair, tears stinging the edges of his eyes he was stalling, stalling, dragging it out, hurry up, stop stalling.

 

Under the polaroids of white-washed smiles and faded skin to skin were his blades, unused, no rust tucked on the edges. New.

Shining, like titanium. And, god they felt light, and if he tightened them in his hands his palms leaked bee buzz red if he squeezed his eyes shut blood got brighter and he could hear the tattoo machine on loop petal pressing and steady stinging his ribcage, a thousand needles pricking and he was afraid of bees after getting stung when he was eight but it was okay, okay, because his hands don’t shake when there is amber to cloud the too bright cherry red buzzing buzzing his blood was almost as bright as the buzzing.

 

Dan snapped his eyes open to the dark hotel room, blood already beading on his skin. It was going to be so easy, too easy. Now or never, it would be so easy, easy as breathing in two-three-four, breath out two-three-four, sitting on the bathroom floor with Phil, amber voice soothing panic-green cries, it would be so easy.

 

And there was nowhere better than here.

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

*** Mind** **the Lines** *****

 

Summer was hot and boring and Dan absolutely spent every second he wasn’t at work on his parents’ couch because it was summer for Christ’s sake and if he was going to be working three jobs the least he could do for his remaining sanity was spend his down time using as few brain cells as possible.

 

Summer was far too long and texting wasn’t the same as having Phil in the room next to him, texting wasn’t good enough. Dan always hated texting, because you couldn’t read a person through texts, color doesn’t translate in texts.  
They were going to be seniors and the two of them had plans, mostly staying at home and eating obscene amounts of popcorn and breaking a record for bottles of wine per semester between their friends, they had best friends and roommate type plans dammit, and Phil being Phil sprung another one on a unmoving Dan somewhere around mid July on a Sunday afternoon. Dan was in between mandatory church and a night shift at the bar when Phil sent him a link to a tattoo artist’s Instagram.

 

**From: phil ^-^**

literally this is exactly the style I want

 

**To: phil ^-^**

dude wait that’s amazing

 

And it was – black and white ink in skin, fine lines and detail and Dan could see; he could see the clean cut and geometric shapes already across Phil’s pale arms.

 

**From: phil ^-^**

but actually I think we have our spring break plans

 

**To: phil ^-^**

what

 

**From: phil ^-^**

canadia rooooooaaaaaad trip!

 

**To: phil ^-^**

just for a tattoo?

 

**From: phil ^-^**

for my FIRST tattoo

 

**From: phil ^-^**

you know how important firsts are for me and this is actually perfect and Toronto isn’t that far really

 

**To: phil ^-^**

hey if you’re up for an epic best friends road trip senior year for best friend tattoos then I guess I am too

 

**From: phil ^-^**

REALLY!!!

wait serIOUSLY!?!

 

**To: phil ^-^**

duh

I can get one too, the style is amazing

 

Dan only half thought about the consequences: the nine-hour drive, the tattoo and hotel money, the hours together. He had always wanted a tattoo anyways and anything with Phil was always fun, anything with his best friend sounded like a good idea, even that one time they went skinny dipping in the fountain on campus. But maybe that was the alcohol humming in their veins and the harmonies of forgetting-forgetting memories in the morning and the baseline of just this once, just this once, better regret something than nothing at all.

Oh and the tattoo; the funny thing was that Dan hardly thought about the tattoo.

 

Fall semester sprinted by, dragging Dan by his ear through a strange amount of parties and going out and hung over Monday lectures and hours and hours of Dan and Phil sprawling out on their crappy couch, lily white giggles around popcorn fights and one bottle, two bottles, and then a third bottle of wine on a Wednesday because maybe Dan doesn’t have impulse control and maybe he is a bad influence on Phil.

 

But. That wasn’t the point, really, the point was that Dan and Phil were DanandPhil more than ever that semester, they were DanandPhil and Dan was letting his life be soaked in sepia and checking his blush at the doorway to Phil’s room; Dan was reminding himself that DanandPhil was one word, one entity, and maybe PJ never stopped poking fun that they were inseparable but amber was Dan’s favorite color so he decided he didn’t get a fuck about PJ’s teasing.  

 

            _You’re going out tonight?_

_Yea, you know James?_

_Uhhhh, cute boy from your graphics class James?_

_Yea, he… well._

_Does Philip have a date!?!?!_

_Oh my god actually shut up._

 

Brick walls weren’t a terrible color but concrete gray was so damn cold and Dan didn’t like it, didn’t like gray in general but he had always hated himself anyways gray wasn’t a good color so who can blame Phil. Soft spring green almost complimented amber warm anyways.

 

After Thanksgiving DanandPhil became Dan and Phil and sepia started to leak away and Dan spent too much time wallowing in gray and yes, PJ was right, and yes, Dan was feeling sorry for himself, but really PJ couldn’t talk because PJ skipped nearly a week of classes moping when he though Chris didn’t like him back so fucking PJ should leave Dan alone and let him lay in bed and watch the navy buzz of his ceiling fan stain the off white paint in layers and waves.

He only moped for a week or so anyways, because it’s hard to hate James, he’s too damn nice and makes Phil confess into Dan’s right side pillow at 4AM that maybe Phil might be in love but is it too soon and nothing makes Phil burn brighter than when James admits in sheepish grins that he was also worried that it was too soon for I love yous.

James made Phil brighter so Dan couldn’t, Dan wouldn’t hate him. James wasn’t half bad either he was so pleasantly green, brightly agreeable, he listed as many baby animal facts as Phil would listen to, which was infinite, and he always remembers that DanandPhil nights meant that James went out with friends because James was so trusting.

 

_Did you know that planes are made of titanium?_

_Phil. We have a mid term tomorrow._

_Because! Titanium is the strongest metal but it’s also light enough to fly._

_So basically, titanium is the ideal element._

_Yea!_

_…_

_Dan, hey Dan?_

_Yes Phil?_

_When my future husband comes asking for advice on the engagement ring—_

_You want a titanium ring don’t you?_

_Duh._

 

And it wasn’t James’s fault, wasn’t Phil’s fault, it wasn’t really, old habits die hard and Dan wasn’t good at talking about his life, wasn’t good at talking in general, wasn’t good at describing how cancer changed his Mother’s color and why he cried when he finished re-reading _The Sorcerer’s Stone_ because it never made him cry before but PJ was a nuisance and a nosy, nosy fucker but it was okay. Dan was good at hiding things.

It wasn’t Phil’s fault, Dan, Dan was fucked up before Phil moved in across the hall freshman year, Dan had lightning white lines before Phil was in the picture, Dan had the weight of worlds already breaking his back and handing him one last straw was just enough weight for something to have to give. And Dan wasn’t good at handling it, and poor PJ, who only wanted to help a friend who never wanted help at all.

 

But it was okay- because Phil’s amber was almost gold-ish and James made really good pancakes and Dan was going to be okay because he wasn’t a selfless dick and if Phil was happy Dan would be fine.

 

He made a habit of clearing his internet history the night he Googled titanium blades and laughed into his pitch dark room at the price of committing to a metaphor and an aesthetic. Dan settled for disposable razor blades and whiskey in his coffee and taking polaroid pictures of the sunset from the seventh floor of the parking deck; Dan settled for a shoebox full of polaroid pictures of his world, captured without the color he had never learned how to explain anyways.

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

*** Pastel** **Palettes** *****

Dan met Lindsey on the seventh floor of the parking deck the first night he wondered how much it would hurt to jump and she offered to share her joint.

 

            _You okay kid?_

_I’m a senior._

_Same, but I didn’t ask._

_I’m not a kid._

_Uhu._

 

Lindsey pushed the right amounts and always at the right times and when Dan set his jaw in concrete Lindsey would fall silent and hand over another destructive habit and they passed time in wordless spaces.

Lindsey’s landlord didn’t give a shit if they smoked in her room and Dan told himself that if Phil could fuck around Dan could fuck around and gray mixed better with pastel lilac and Lindsey kissed his lightning white scars and Dan pressed fingertips over angry red burn splotches criss crossed in her pale skin and smoke and gray and pastel blended into hazy days being immobile and maybe Dan disappeared for a bit; maybe he lost track of time when Fridays bled into Sunday afternoons weekend after weekend and Dan just needed a shower in his own home and Lindsey got it; she kissed him goodbye and left baby blue lip prints that Dan didn’t see in his reflection.

 

            _Where were you all weekend?_

_I really want to shower, Phil—_

_Same place you were last weekend?_

_…_

_You stink Dan, have you been smoking?_

_Phil move, please._

_We’re talking after you shower._

_I just want to sleep okay?_

_Dan, please, I’m worried about you._

_I’m fine._

_I don’t believe you._

_Move._

 

Phil and James and PJ and Chris wouldn’t leave him alone, they organized a fucking intervention and Dan knew they were in the living room before he trekked down the stairs because he could see their cars all parked out of his bedroom window and he might as well get it over with because if he knew Phil, and god did he know Phil, if Dan didn’t come to the living room soon, good intentions would be knocking down his door.

 

            _If you guys were going to have a party you should have invited me._

 

When Phil said his name it was a boiling color, the gray curled at the edges and he was suffocating now, there was too much and he knew, Dan knew, it was good and kind and he knew they were worried, Chris’ primary bright dulled when he frowned enough to wrinkle his eye brows and PJ looked at Dan like he was a puzzle that needed to be solved and placed in order, put back together.

 

            _I just… I started seeing someone, that’s… that’s where I’ve been._

_Well do we get to meet her?_

 

They never did. Dan promised, but he never followed through. Lindsey didn’t ask, she never asked and when everything was at it’s worst Dan curled up on her mattress and breathed in dandelion yellow singing over gentle green ukulele chords because Lindsey was just as much sad hipster trash as Dan was and he loved her, he loved Lindsey and she loved him and they fucked but they weren’t in love but they loved each other and between Thanksgiving and Christmas it felt like enough.

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

*** Redemptive***

 

Christmas was cold but not snowy and Dan was alone for most of Christmas because of his own awful stubbornness and because his Mom was in hospice anyways and Dan hated hospitals, needles scared him and the empty white walls were color stained too easily, but his Dad spend most nights in an armchair in Mom’s room that was never quiet or calm because of the teal and blue and green beeping machines the air was never empty and Dan couldn’t sleep or think or breathe there so Dan spent nights home alone.

 

Christmas Eve was bitter cold and they didn’t have a tree, because Dad wasn’t really that into Christmas, but Mom had always insisted that they get a real tree, because otherwise Christmas didn’t smell like Christmas. Christmas Eve found Dan on the couch under blankets, laying sideways and watching colors flicker across the TV screen by but he had muted it forever ago because the voices didn’t match the bright primaries that comedies thrived on the main actors voice was to saturated and it was giving Dan a headache. And when someone knocked on the door Colin went a little insane, barking and shouting at whoever decided it was appropriate to knock on the damn door at fucking midnight on Christmas Eve. Nearly Christmas.

 

            _Dan?_

 

Dan had a tenancy to forget the exactness of people’s shades and colors but Dan learned before the end of freshman year that Phil had a habit of being an exception and sepia sighed under the door before Dan had even opened it.

 

            _What the fuck are you doing here?_

_You weren’t answering your phone._

_It’s Christmas Eve._

_Christmas actually, it’s past midnight now._

_..._

_Merry Christmas Dan._

_Merry Christmas._

 

They were both sorry, they said I miss you and it’s not the same and I know, I know and I’m sorry I’m sorry and by two in the morning Dan and Phil had cried and fallen asleep tangled on the couch and Dan dreamed about middle school in sepia and being high in pastel pink clouds and when his father came home and saw the boys on the couch he let them sleep.

 

Spring semester was almost better because Phil and James were happy and PJ and Chris got off his back and Lindsey felt like his best kept secret, she was too soft and too important his to share with his friends; Dan swore that is she saw too much light she may shatter into prism pieces and Lindsey didn’t mind; spring semester was almost better because Dan maybe didn’t really have Lindsey but he had Phil again Dan had his best friend and Dan knew that he couldn’t ask life to give him anything more.

 

Dan and Phil made time for each other, carved out nights to drink through cheap white wine that tasted like juice and generic brand popcorn and Dan gave Phil the DVD box set of _Buffy_ and in January they let themselves get snowed in: Dan, Phil and James, PJ and Chris, door closed to the several feet of snow, in the living room catching the full spectrum the air never empty while they plowed through cases of cider and boxes of wine and season after season after season of _Buffy_ and falling asleep piled on the floor just to wake up to start drinking again.

 

On Valentines Day Dan and Lindsey spend a weekend high and fucking and celebrating being clean and kissing scars and they knew they were waning away but Dan still loved her and she loved him. He helped her bleach and dye her hair LA girl blue gray and told her about the colors he saw and she was amazed and excited that she was so soft to him. Lilac was her favorite color after all.

 

Dan knew he was better but old habits die hard and he was never emotionally strong, Dan was the kid who cried when he fell from the monkey bars and sobbed the whole ride from the playground to the ER, Dan was the kid who screeched awful yellow green at every moving van, angry that God ever made him a military brat; Dan never handled a lot of things well.

 

In late February Dan couldn’t stop crying because he owned so much black but he still couldn’t find the right clothes to wear to his mother’s – Dan couldn’t face himself in the mirror how could he face friends and family and strangers who would want to hug him and not know what to say because what do you say to a kid who would never get to dance with their Mom at their wedding or call her when he burned soup or when scheduling a doctor’s appointment sounded scary or when he didn’t understand bills or –

Dan had never cried with such violence, he had never cried so yellow burned all green gone; he had never felt like breathing was fire, even when he sucked smoked into his lungs.

 

Phil drove the three hours back with him and held his hand the whole service and never left his side and maybe everything was appropriately dulled but he felt better when his peripheral vision was tinted warm gold and almost orang-y because home held more definitions, more color, more just more than the word love to Dan. Home.

 

            _Hey Dan?_

_Hm?_

_Are you still… do you still want to spend spring break together?_

_Yea, of course._

_Cool._

_Did you really think I would forget that we’re going to Toronto?_

_No I just... wanted to make sure you were still up for it._

_Of fucking course I’m up for it!_

_Are you sure?_

_Positive._

 

Lindsey was very good with charcoal and heavy white paper and she drew shapes in black and white after Dan’s descriptions of sounds and people and the way they lived in the air with color stains and amorphous shapes; hazy figures like ink blot tests or broken smoke signals and Dan fell in love with the one shaped like his mother’s emerald laughter and he asked Lindsey if she thought it would be silly to get the blurred angles inked across his side where lightning lines slotted between his ribs.

Lindsey replied, it would be beautiful; Lindsey said his mom would have loved it.

 

The first weekend in March Phil turned colder, light sucked from the gold tint of his smiles because James was sorry, James just couldn’t stay with Phil if they were going to go their separate ways in a few months, James was sorry, so sorry and Dan wanted to hate him but Phil sat with a popcorn bowl between his knees and forgave without a second thought.

 

            _I’m glad he did it._

_What?_

_He got a job offer in California and he’s taking it._

_So?_

_So? I’m not leaving New York, we’d literally be a continent away, it wasn’t worth it._

_That’s bullshit and you know it._

_Dan…_

_You loved him._

_So?_

_So! So, you fucking loved him, you’d never said that to anyone, he was your first—_

_Yea, Dan I know, I know._

_…_

_…_

_You’re worth it._

_What?_

_Staying. You’re worth staying._

_…_

_…_

_You’re staying here when we graduate, right?_

_Like you’re going to get rid of me, ever._

_Promise?_

_Promise_.

 

Dan was so terrible about keeping promises, because, well. Old habits die hard and he was only a week clean and Phil barely a week brokenhearted when they packed the car for a nine-hour drive to Toronto.

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

*** Crossing Borders***

 

Dan liked car rides with Phil because everything was all the right colors and they had the same taste in music and they talked each other hoarse. They had nine hours to kill and it felt like DanandPhil again it felt like Dan was himself again Dan felt good and happy and whole again the exact way he knew he would but had never let himself want.

 

            _Are you still seeing that girl?_

_What? Oh, no, not… not really._

_How come?_

_She was never really… we were just fucking around._

_Oh._

_Yea, she’s just a good friend really, we haven’t, I mean. We stopped messing around._

_Okay._

 

And it wasn’t a lie even when Lindsey sent him eight winky faces telling him to get it with Phil after they checked into the hotel room. Because Lindsey never pushed but Dan told her everything anyways, Dan told her nearly everything.

 

            _What tattoo are you getting?_

_Oh, it’s a sketch that Lindsey did. Here,_

_Abstract._

_Shut up. You’re literally getting a bunch of lines._

_Fancy lines. Where are you getting it?_

_Ribs._

_You know that hurts right?_

_No Phil, really?_

_Actually shut up._

 

They had two days to kill in a two person hotel room, they spent their spare cash at the bar around the corner and Dan was always a giggly and touchy drunk and Phil was touchy in general and the first night there everything felt wonderfully different; Toronto was another world where it was just DanandPhil and no one else and DanandPhil didn’t have anyone teasing them about being an old married couple and they drank themselves silly at the bar around the corner and Dan swore that by his fifth the whole world went Phil shades of amber warm golden orange and brown.

 

            _I love your color._

  
They fit so nicely in one bed maybe gray and amber blended just fine just fine Dan loved the way they tangled.

  
            _I love you._

 

Dan didn’t answer didn’t have to answer didn’t get the chance to answer because now Dan knew the exact texture of Phil’s lips on his lips and he knew the burning shade of his shuddering gasps and the before a storm sky blue of moaning and Dan’s whispers went silver in the dark when he spoke Phil’s name like a prayer.

 

One day was left in the hotel bed – drunk wasn’t an excuse but there was the unspoken ‘what happens in Toronto’, and DanandPhil knew the rest because Phil was heartbroken and Dan would do anything for Phil, would do anything because Dan was always selfless to a fault he would tear himself to bits if it meant that everyone he loved would be okay. And Dan was committed to making Phil okay. Consequences be dammed.

 

            _Maybe we shouldn’t…_

_Do you not want to?_

_It’s a bit to late to be asking—_

_Do you not want to?_

_No, I… I want to. I want you._

_Stop thinking about it so much._

            _Dan, it’s…_

_I don’t care. You need this right now, and I’m happy to help._

 

Dan liked the exact shade of satisfaction in shutting Phil up with a kiss.

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

*** Lessons in Permanence***

 

Dan had been to a tattoo parlor once, when his friend from high school dragged him with her to get her bellybutton pierced because she couldn’t go alone and everyone else would judge her.

Tattoo parlors were maraschino cherry red with buzzing machines and Dan used to be so scared of needles but when the first blot was made it was like the tension leaked into the needle and the pain sparked along his sides in a beautifully familiar way. The artist didn’t ask about his lighting dashes and they were hidden soon under the charcoal laughter that Dan could so clearly see in emerald and Phil took a careful picture before it was wrapped away from the world and Dan burned for the rest of the night and the next day.

Burning, Dan spent time brightly burning, because Phil set places ablaze and Dan was allowed to be there, it was DanandPhil getting tattoos in Toronto during spring break and chasing each other sober out of an elevator down a hall it was Phil trapping Dan against the flimsy door in the dark, dark, darkness in the hotel room and Dan thought how appropriate that shitty hotels had amber warm lights that were an artifice of Phil’s warmth.

 

Dan slept the nine hours back, he pushed his face into the cold window and slept away the hours and he wondered how glaring the purple on his neck was and when Phil jostled him awake and said we’re home Dan thought about kissing him.

 

Lindsey had taught Dan a lesson in addiction, taught Dan that he had a personality that couldn’t quit cold turkey; it was like eating the whole bag of candy or drinking the entire bottle of Malibu, like smoking the entire bowl or fucking Phil Lester. He was never satisfied with one taste.

Dan wasn’t good at quitting, Dan wasn’t good at having something once and then never again, and Dan was never good with giving up after he had indulged.

And it wasn’t Phil’s fault that old habits die hard and Dan was a convenient and comfortable body and they were tangled up in the wrong time and space and in the grand scheme of things, objectively, DanandPhil in the form that Dan was desperately addicted to was a fling, a bent until it shattered unspoken rule that was treated with hot glue and rubber cement the second they crossed back over the border and it wasn’t Phil’s fault that Dan let him too far in.

 

The last weekend in March Dan got another tattoo, he went with Lindsey and let her talk through the red dripped air while roses were pressed into his arm and Dan reminded himself that tattoos were so, so addicting but the alternative, the alternative.

 

Finals loomed in front of Dan and he couldn’t care, he couldn’t bring himself to give a damn because Phil was bright warm goldish amber and he was concrete gray and his shoebox was full of pictures of memories Dan wanted to escape into.

 

            _Hey, earth to Dan?_

            _What PJ?_

_Dude you look awful._

_Thanks?_

_Have you been sleeping?_

_…_

_Dan,_

_I have finals to study for._

 

Good excuse, great excuse and Dan wondered weeks before he was meant to graduate if maybe he should have picked up that theater minor because everyone was lost in finals and he could just slip by under the radar silent silence colorless nights behind his eyelids, his nights stopped featuring sleep and dreams instead inundated with black weights and the way panic turned his breathing sick pine green.

 

            _Hey. I’m hanging with PJ and Chris to study this weekend, we’re going to camp out in the library._

_Okay._

_Come with me?_

_No thanks._

_Please?_

_I study better on my own._

_Yea, but it’ll be more fun—_

_I said no thanks Phil._

_Okay._ _Offers open all weekend… just…_

_Thanks._

_Yea, of course._

 

Dan wondered what would happen with his car and how long it would take for someone to find it in the hotel parking lot. The out of country plates weren’t exactly subtle.

Dan knew that he was melodramatic sometimes; he knew that DanandPhil wasn’t a forever thing and that people lie without knowing because people have no concept of forever or how time can change you. Dan makes enough excuses to make up for the broken promises and the fact that Lindsey was going to be pissed at him.

 

Phil only spends an hour in the library before trying to call Dan. He only calls twice before he is running to his car and speeding home and scared to find Dan’s parking spot empty.

 

**To: PJ**

can you call dan?

 

**To: PJ**

hes not picking up and he isn’t home and he wont answer me

 

**From: PJ**

you sure he didn’t just go somewhere to study?

 

**To: PJ**

his suitcase and his camera are gone

 

**To: PJ**

he wont pick up his phone and its not even rigning

 

**From: PJ**

okay calm down, I’m on my way. I’m sure dan is fine. you know how he gets during finals

hes fine

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*** Spaces***

 

Dan never considered himself a strong person. He always marveled at how his mother maintained her exact shade, her exact self even when her body ate away at her even when everything around was off color and wrong and so far gone.

Dan didn’t think he was very much like his mother. He was as stubborn as she had been, and he had her eyes, but he was too gangly and tall to be like her and too quiet and not loud or bright enough. He was too much like his father, like his father who kept his words to careful choices and calculated action with wary green eyes, yes Dan was too much like his father in his keeping away and stillness.

 

Toronto was nice in May.

 

            _I love snow._

_I know._

_Hey Daaaaaaan._

_…_

_Do you wanna build a snowman?_

_NO._

 

Maybe if he had come here in January he could have gotten snowed in.

 

            _Dan-dan-dan-dan._

_Yes Phil?_

_Daaaaaan lookitlookit_

_Nice bracelet?_

_James gave to me, Daaaaaan guess what it’s made of._

_Can’t you just tell me?_

_It’s titanium._

_Oh. That’s really cool._

_Isn’t it?_

_Kinda gay._

_Dan. Hate to break it to you. But I am gay._

_Yea that was the joke you spoon._

 

At 5AM Dan was striped red too dull for buzzing tattoo machines but dark enough to be almost like florescent lights and the way they hum when Dan is halfway drunk.

He left the first empty bottle on the unoccupied bed, Malibu white and red coconut artificial. Everything ached and Dan wanted to sit in it, sit and wallow and mope because fucking hell there was no one to come by and stop Dan from feeling sorry for himself.

Was he dumb and dramatic yes of course was he being dumb so dumb Dan was always a fucking idiot he was gray and dumb and he swore he knew better words than dumb but that didn’t matter because nothing mattered to Dan anymore.

 

He had Bohemian Rhapsody stuck in his head now, he felt suddenly quieter at the mental image of piano chords bending from under his fingers popping in purpled and royal blue bursts from memory behind his eye lids.

 

Dan’s hands had stopped shaking now and it was almost dawn – the blinds were tinted more white now but Dan was so tired, so very, very tired.

 

He lifted himself from the bed sheets and into the dingy little bathroom where the were no windows and he didn’t turn on the lights he sunk into the bath tub so it would be easier to clean and Dan started praying again for the first time since he was thirteen, since he asked and asked since he couldn’t understand why liking boys was wrong, Dan hadn’t prayed in so long but he might as well cover all his bases while he still could.

 

Dan never liked the color red but now it was all he could see, it soaked through his concrete gray, his slowing breaths, inflate, deflate, pull in, push out, the red and the gray rusting together and brown black curves across the air.

 

            _I’m Phil!_

_Dan._

_Nice to meet you!_

_You too._

_I’m right across the hall, and I’m already unpacked, and I was wondering if you need help?_

_Help?_

_Moving in and stuff?_

_Oh, yea, thanks, that would be awesome._

_…_

_…_

_Hey, hey Dan?_

_Yea?_

_I think we’re going to be good friends._

_Whatever you say Phil._

Amber was always Dan’s favorite color.

**Author's Note:**

> don't write much about my synesthesia  
> i would love to know what you think - i'm a poet before i'm a fiction writer so ye  
> thank you for reading <3


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